Torrential rain brought by a stationary front closed down several sections of road and caused the collapse of makeshift bridges in mountainous areas of southern Taiwan yesterday.
However, no major damage was reported as of press time last night.
The Central Weather Bureau (CWB) issued an alert at 8:45am yesterday, cautioning residents in central, southern and southeastern Taiwan to be vigilant. It also warned of the chance of sporadic heavy rain in northern and northeastern Taiwan.
PHOTO: CNA
The National Freeway Bureau said that as of noon yesterday, several sections of road and makeshift bridges along the Southern Cross-Island Highway, New Central Cross-Island Highway, Alishan Highway and mountainous areas in southern Taiwan were closed because of either flash floods or small landslides.
One of those was the Yila makeshift bridge in Pingtung County’s Wutai Township (霧台). After it was finally restored only last week, the bridge collapsed again yesterday, following heavy rain on Friday — isolating Wutai.
The CWB forecast that rainfall brought by the front would stay until tomorrow.
With the start of the rainy season, the safety of bridges nationwide is under close scrutiny.
A recent nationwide evaluation conducted by the Institute of Transportation (IOT) showed that several counties have failed to properly inspect the bridges under their jurisdiction.
The IOT is a transportation research institute under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
James Tseng (曾志煌), director of the IOT’s engineering division, said the institute conducts annual evaluations on the maintenance and management of bridges nationwide.
“In the evaluation, we consider several factors, including the efforts spent on inspections and maintenance of the bridges, which account for 50 percent of the grade, as well as the scores granted by civil engineering experts not affiliated with the IOT,” he said.
Yunlin, Taitung, Chiayi and Changhwa counties all scored below 60 out of 100 points, with Yunlin faring the worst.
Statistics from the IOT show that as of last year the Yunlin County Government had inspected less than 2 percent of the 1,151 bridges it manages, resulting in an overall score of 29.92 points in the evaluation.
“About 98 percent of Yunlin’s inspection records have not been updated since 2007 ... We are not sure of the safety of the county’s bridges because of the lack of updated records,” Tseng said.
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